" In the garden of my soul,
you are born and you grow
you, oh beautiful flowers, stars and circles
who appear out of the origin of the universe.
I nourish you with my celestial love,
Then bring you into terrestrial being.
You, oh Mandalas, you are the mirror
Of creation and beatitude.
Be messengers of peace and joy on earth.
Become illuminators of knowledge and wisdom."

The Mandala is a concentration
aid: by focusing the attention, it allows one to progress towards the goal
of all the Yogas: the arresting of all mental activity so that the Divine,
or the Self, may reveal itself. The self in the Upanishads is said to be
as vast as the universe and, at the same time smaller than a mustard seed.
By progressively bringing the multiplicity of the Mandalas exterior towards
its central point, the "bindu", one follows a spiral movement which takes
one from the infinite variety within the universe to the extreme simplicity
of the Self.

The original meaning of the
word 'Mandala' is 'circle' from which we get the image of the universe
as a disc when the horizon is observed from far out at sea or high up in
the mountains. The Mandala gives an order to what at first seems to be
an incoherent multiplicity of things - it is an agent for transforming
chaos of the cosmos. The Mandala also organizes our internal universe -
it assists in controlling and regulating this inner world.

A synonym for mandala is "yantra"
which carries the meaning of control, restriction and, at the same time,
an instrument and an aid. As with statues of divinities. the Mandala requires
a special meditation at the beginning of its existence to inspire (literally
"inspirer" in French) - "prana-pratistha" the power of the divinity. More
importantly, according to Indian tradition, the way of meditating on the
Mandala is transmitted by the spiritual master and thus his presence is
closely associated with the material image.

MARLIS LADURÉE has found
a file line between the tradition of the Mandala and her own creativity.
In following the fundamental principle of the Mandala the circle of the
square she brings more sun to us on Earth.

C.G. JUNG realized the essential
value of using the Mandala in therapeutic practice. Two generations after
his death, the practical and theoretical knowledge of the Orient and its
spirituality has been greatly developed: the Mandala as a form and as a
meditation aid has come into its own. There is no longer any need for a
special stamp of approval from the specialists in psychopathology who,
although they contributed much in the beginning are more cumbersome than
anything else today. My initial training as a psychiatrist allows me to
speak with a certain personal experience.

The Mandala represents a balance
between the multiple and Unity. While western psychotherapy offers an interesting
addition to the analysis of the multitude of mental schemes, it suites
grievously from is lack of attention to Unity, which is at once the basis
and the crowning of all inner life. Therapies, generally speaking, use
limited techniques for limited goals - spiritual development is a long
unfettered and spontaneous apprenticeship.

The Mandala is a powerful tool
for memorizing hymns and texts for those who recite them according to the
tradition. Its power lies in the fact that memorizing is made easier and
more precise if the eyes are fixed on the same point. The Mandala is a
sort of tunnel that allows one to penetrate intuitively the structure of
the universe -to discover the Sell' or the adjacent Emptiness. The Tibetans
say that one has to realize the emptiness of the Mandala of a given divinity.
This allows one to go beyond the usual concern of the "psychorigid" rationalist
who habitually asks. "Are divinities real or imaginary ?". They are no
more real or imaginary than the eyes of the one who meditates upon them.
When the ego disappears, the torn of the divinity disappears also.

The repetition of the multiplicity
of forms in the Mandala reminds one of the multi dimensional structures
found in nature from the geometric shapes of crystals to the shapes found
in the plant and animal worlds. Finding the same structure over and over
again but at different levels of existence is indicative of the law of
the economy of energy both for nature and for the human mind. When one
identifies these patterns, these analogies whether it be through scientific
means or through meditation, one begins to understand something. Having
these landmarks in the "ferra incognita" allows one to feel secure which
is essential in the journey towards the point where mental activity ceases.
Through "crystalline" meditation, the inner eye of the sage discerns, in
the

apparent chaos of the world,
a pattern as regular as that of the diamond - or that of the Mandala. In
fact the Mandala itself, is an eye - the "bindu" standing for the pupil
with the iris around it. If the eye is the mirror of the soul then the
Mandala is that of the mind. One of the words in sanskrit for mirror is
"mandalakam".

Thus, the Mandala looking at
us evokes "Brahman" the Absolute. To quote the Kena Upanishad "That which
is not seen by the eye but by which the eye sees -know that to be Brahman.
Brahman is not the being who is worshipped by men". In his own way a spiritual
guide is also a mandala -his own secret harmony inviting us to discovery
and contemplation.

If we consider the Mandala as
a dome or a well, a third dimension opens up to us: verticality. According
to the rules of construction of a Hindu temple, a narrow well of the same
length as the tower has to he dug under the tower. A variety of grains
and water from the Ganges are placed at the bottom of the well. This act
serves as a symbol of continuous growth from the fertile birth of life
to the summit of spiritual evolution. The Mandala, the dome and the well
all invite us to partake in this spiritual ascension.

As soon as we begin to feel
a particular part of our body becomes energized during meditation, the
Tibetans advise us to concentrate on the central point within this zone.
This zone, as it were becomes a sort of Mandala of the In India there are
many different types of spiritual practices - Yogas which guide one towards
the Absolute. Each has its own place like trees in the same forest or members
of the same family - the reason I have come to love this country where
I have lived for the past ten years. Amongst these practices, the geometric
Mandala with its pure forms, represents a half way stage between a statue
with a human lace, which everyone is able to contemplate, and that without
tom - for higher types of meditation. Given the geometric figures we could
call it a rough copy in the truest sense of the term. This is no doubt
why I wanted to put Mandalas on the covers of my three books on psycho-spirituality.
This is also why the publishers, ALBIN MICHEL chose to put a Mandala on
the cover of the catalogue of their collection on spirituality. By reducing
the human body to its simplest expression, the

Mandala becomes a universal
symbol and reminds of the time of Pythagorus when geometry was considered
to be a branch of wisdom.

The boundless symbolism of the
Mandala demands to be treated by a European such as MARLIS LADURÉE
whose express wish is to have the text of her book presented in three languages:
French, English and German. It's not by accident that her works were exhibited
in Berlin at the University of Pence, which was presided over by the DALAÏ-LAMA.

The Mandala is the mark of the
Divine -the stamp of the Invisible on the Visible; its outer square represents
the Earth and the inner circle is like a flower.

May MARLIS LADURÉE, in
the springtime of her art, bring many more flowers to bloom on our Earth.